Celebrating the Bride-to-be (Part II)

Hola Bloggies:

So after I was pampered and enjoyed a totally swanky afternoon the fun continued.

After leaving the cabana area we headed to a frozen yogurt store located downstairs in the Fairmont Waterfront. Bella Gelateria was absolutely a foodie’s dream! To the owners gelato isn’t just a cool treat. It’s art.

In fact the store is owned by a couple, the male counterpart of which is the gelato maker. To learn how to make gelato, James (the official gelato maker) honed his art at the Italian Culinary Institute and followed that up with advanced master’s training at Carpigiani’s Gelato University. In 2012 James will even represent Canada at the Gelato World Cup in Rimini, Italy.

And the gelato? It was everything you would expect. Decadent.

Eventually we left the Fairmont Waterfront but we did it in absolute style. We took one of the chauffeured luxury cars for a tour of Stanley Park before stopping at my hotel for check-in (The Sutton Place Hotel) before ending up at a Korean restaurant for dinner.

While there are other yummier Korean restaurants in Vancouver, Sura has a great atmosphere.

My go-to meal at Korean restaurants is sundubu, a spicy soft tofu stew. It’s delicious!

I ordered my usual but made a point of taking a picture of some of the other dishes around the table.

While the food was delicious the company was better. Living in the Rockies I seldom get a chance to spend time with my friends. This weekend in Vancouver was a rare and wonderful treat.

As we walked back to my hotel I counted my blessings. I truly am thankful for all I have.

My friends took the time to organize a wonderful bachelorette weekend; It was honestly more than I ever expected.

(part of the view from my hotel room)

I felt truly loved and appreciated.

If anything, this weekend made me even more excited for the wedding. We honestly can’t wait to have all of our nearest and dearest there to celebrate our day!

It’s going be an awesome time. I can’t wait for all the festivities surrounding the wedding day. I get to marry my lobster (Friends anyone?). What a privilege.

You know in The Sound of Music when Maria and Captain Von Trapp are in the gazebo and she sings “’cause somewhere in my wicked childhood I must have done something good . . .” That’s kind of how I feel.

I may not have had a wicked childhood but I sometimes find myself wondering what I did to serve all of these blessings. I’m healthy, I have friends, I have love, I have a darling puppy, I have a family that supports me, I have a great career, I want for nothing, and in November I get to live out a fairytale.

I am ever so grateful.

 

Question: When was the last time you counted your blessings?

Good Things Come in Three – now with a HUGE announcement

Hola Bloggies:

How have things been going on your end? I hope you had an awesome weekend – and if you’re Canadian, I hope you had a fantastic long weekend!

As for things in the casa, I have to confess today was not a great day. I woke up with a full on fever accompanied with watery burning eyes. It was so bad that it had me blasting my heat inside the car . . . in the middle of summer!!! Eeek! To make matters worse work ended up being a decidedly rough day. I wish I could go back and get a do-over.

But no used on crying over spilled milk, right!?! Besides, I have three wonderful news to share with you today. In light of that awesomeness I propose we move on past my meh day and head on to my news.

 

Good Thing #1 – The Winner of the POM Giveaway

Thank-you so much to all of you that entered my POM Giveaway last week. I have to confess it warms my heart to be able to host those giveaways; I know I have been on the receiving end of some great prizes from fellow bloggers (the last one coming courtesy of Marianne of From French Fries to Flax Seeds) and I love the chance to pay it forward.

So without further ado. The winner of the POM coupons (as chosen by Random.org) is . . . .

Jessica of Dairy Free Betty!!!

Woohoo Jessica! No need to send me your addy amiga – a hand-to-hand trade-off will surely take place on Vancouver Island over the next few weeks!

 

Good Thing #2 – Long Beach Half Marathon

I am officially into week two of my Long Beach Half Marathon training. Yes bloggies, it’s actually going to happen! I’m going to become a halfy (HA!) come October 17th, 2010.

To get me to the finish line I’m using a modified version of Hal Higdon’s Half Marathon Training Program for Novices. His training plans seem to be blogger favourites so I figure I can’t go wrong. Now as fantastic as his plans are I am modifying them a little. For the most part I’m going to try to get myself across the finish line by running in between 3 and 4 times a week; some may run five times a week but I have learned through experience that my body can’t handle running everyday. I’m confident that reducing my number of running days will help me steer clear of any over-use injuries.

To follow my training you can check back on this blog or for more regular updates you can check out my Daily Mile widget on the right hand column of this blog.

I’m seriously excited to do this half marathon!!! It’s first in a series of fitness goals I’ve recently set for myself; I’m even planning on competing in a Sprint Triathlon next summer. And yes, I recall saying once upon a time that I would never do a tri but Ironman CDA changed my life!!!

 

Good Thing #3 – No Limits Canada

This one is HUGE bloggies! In fact, I daresay it’s EPIC!!!!!

In the recent past the healthy blogging word has given birth to some awesome movements and events (think Operation Beautiful and the Healthy Living Summit). It has been completely humbling to see what this community can accomplish. Recently, a group of us got together and decided that it was high time that something similar come to the Canada.

Today, myself, Susan (The Great Balancing Act), Morgan (Life After Bagels), Scott (Your Inner Skinny), Jen, and Nienke (Revel) are proud to announce the inception of:

No Limits Canada: Health, Wellness, and Fitness Conference

This wonderful conference will be a multi-day event taking place in Toronto, Canada in May, 2011 (final date to be announced soon). The event will be open to anyone, regardless if they’re bloggers or not or even country of residence. We hope you will join us for what is guaranteed to be a weekend full of speakers, hands-on health and fitness classes, photography workshops, foodie goodness, swag, and fun explorations a fantastic cosmopolitan city!!!

Right now the best way to stay updated is through our respective blogs, the official No Limits Canada website, or through our twitter account.

I’m super excited about the event and I hope you are too!!!

 

 

Question: Will you consider attending “No Limits Canada: Health, Wellness, and Fitness Conference?”

Foto Friday

(source)

Hola Bloggies:

It’s Friday again!!! I don’t know about you but the second half of my week seemed to just zoom by – which suits me just fine!

I was looking at the calendar the other day and realized that we’re only three months away from our wedding. EEEK!!!! That’s super exciting and yet a little stressful at the same time. The dress, the honeymoon, the invitations, the ceremony, the guests . . . there are so many details to with which to preoccupy myself. Thankfully, our wedding invitations will go out this following week. It’s later than we hoped it to be but we were pretty specific about what we wanted and we had to wait for certain materials to be sourced. Once the invites are out I’ll be sure to blog about our whole wedding invitation suite – we’re really quite thrilled with how it turned out!

In the meantime, I thought today’s Foto Friday should feature a glimpse of our honeymoon destination – Guanajuato, Mexico. It’s not what people envision when they think of Mexico and that’s exactly what we wanted. Something off the beaten (North American) tourist path. Somewhere that allowed us to live out our “sitting in a cafe in a beautiful historical city” visions. Guanajuato turned out to be perfect.

Question: What are your plans for this weekend? It’s a long weekend here in Canada so I’m sure I’ll get up to some chelaxing (chilling + relaxing)!

High Altitude Roasting

Hola Bloggies:

I know I keep on mentioning this but it’s still sweltering up here in the Rocky Mountains. In fact it’s almost 10PM and it’s only now starting to get bearable. All I know is, I have heaps of respect for those of you that live in the South.

My guess is that although I was born in the tropics I forgot to live in crazy heat somewhere along the way!

Monday it was over 100 degrees by the time I left work (over 40C). I couldn’t bear the thought of cooking so I went to the grocery store to buy a deli sub for dinner. That’s when one of my co-workers called wanting to know if we were still on for our standing Monday night doggy hike. Truth be told I was stunned to no end. I couldn’t imagine Daisy out in that heat. To compromise we decided to head out to one of the local lakes (a particularly gorgeous one at the base of the Rocky Mountains) for a picnic dinner and hike.

Lovely, no?

 

The lake is spring fed so it’s particularly frigid. Particularly where it gets deeper. This despite the intense Rocky Mountain sun.

Don’t believe me? Ask my soaking wet puppy!

Dinner featured some G2 Gatorade (I’m a big fan of Gatorade in hot weather since I tend to become easily dehydrated).

More deli sandwiches made by my local Safeway.

Some wonderful British Columbia grown cherries.

I also added one of the new Kashi granola bars (courtesy of a coupon I received for a free box).

The bars had pretty decent nutritionals.

At first glance I was impressed.

And as far as the taste I have to say my mouth was pretty happy. My chocolate raspberry bar was not too sweet and certainly not salty. I also enjoyed the fact that it tasted like it had a layer of raspberry jam between the chocolate and the granola bar itself. Overall I was pleased.

The Fiancé however felt something was missing. He deemed it “healthy tasting.” Which is his way of saying that his taste-buds weren’t fooled by the chocolate layer.

Our friend clearly voiced her opinion when she blurted out “Chocolate!?!? THIS is chocolate!?!?” Apparently she wasn’t fooled either.

The problem I had with the bars was when I noticed that buried at the end of the ingredient list was peanut flour. I was sad. Never before have I needed to worry about peanuts with Kashi. And here they went and made a bar with peanut flour. Given that I’m allergic to peanuts I won’t be buying these bars again.

Miraculously I didn’t get sick from the bars – which leads me to believe that the peanut flour content is negligible at best. Likely why it’s right at the end of the ingredient list. Still, I won’t be risking my health in the future.

I honestly don’t understand why Kashi would stipulate on the package that the bars contained dates and raspberries and somehow neglect to mention peanuts. Fail Kashi. FAIL.

After dinner we splashed around the lake where I snapped some more pictures of the surroundings.

As the evening cooled we made our way to another lake where we went on our regular hike. It was hot. Brutally hot. And the sun was blistering.

Still, we lasted about an hour and a half before heading home. Not bad.

I had grand hopes of going for a three mile run after my hike. Ha! I ended up with heat stroke and passed out from my crazy migraine. Clearly, I should have taken my outdoor activities a little lighter, given the weather. Noted.

Question: What do you do to cool off in the midst of the summer?

Painting it Red – Furia Roja Style

Hola Bloggies:

I have a confession to make. Yours truly has a World Cup problem. No. Really. I watched pretty well most of the matches during the last couple of weeks. This despite the fact that many took place in the middle of the day.

Crazy, eh!?

At one point the World Cup threatened to turn into a disappointment (I would have been very sad over a Germany-Netherlands final) but the Spaniards came through and fought their way to the final. To celebrate the occasion I prepared a tapas style luncheon and invited one of my co-workers to come watch the game.

 

Who said noon is too early to start drinking!! Ha! I chose a couple of Spanish wines but we ended up only opening the Rosé – it was crazy hot. Turned out to be delish.

Given the heat and the lack of air conditioning in the casa, I did my best to avoid dishes that involved too much cooking. Hence the tapas style meal.

Those mushrooms are a favourite of mine. They are kind of pickled and have a lovely texture and taste.

To make the salad I used a bag of mixed field greens grown by a local producers. There were even flowers in that bowl.

Ah…cheese and bread. How I love thee. Originally I had hoped to serve Spanish cheeses but my plans were thwarted by the local cheese selection. Instead, I opted for goat cheese, smoked cheddar cheese, and brie.

Chorizo and cured ham. Both proved a hit!

This is the only dish I actually cooked on my stove top – shrimp in a sherry, paprika, garlic, and red pepper flake sauce.

And the last item – some grilled chicken marinated in a saffron spice mix.

For the dessert I served an un-pictured dulce de leche cheesecake I purchased at a local store. Truthfully, I would have rather just eaten the dulce solo!

On the whole the game and the Cup were thoroughly enjoyable – one of my favourite teams ended up winning! Woohoo!!! Too bad I have to wait four more years until the next one!

The good news is we plan on being in Brazil in 2014 – we figure we will go and watch some games then tour the country. It will be a trip of a lifetime and I`m excited already!!!

 

Did you watch the World Cup? What were your favourite moments? If you did not watch the World Cup, what is your favourite sport?

As for me – here are my highs and lows of the World Cup.

High – South Africa scoring the first goal of the tourney

Low – France imploding in the most embarrassing debacle ever

High – Italy failing to make it out of the group stages despite being in a dead easy group

Low – The sour way the Dutch behaved after it became clear Spain would win the Cup

High – Watching Forlan play. He was clearly the revelation of the tourney and Manchester United must surely be kicking themselves now (he used to play for them)